Identical dwellings add charm to Greaves Ave

Advance photo/Jamie LeeThese six Great Kills homes - found on Greaves Avenue between Greaves Lane and Katan Avenue - have remained near-identical in appearance since their construction was completed in the mid-1960s.

STATEN ISLAND, NY -- GREAT KILLS -- A feeling of deja vu has been a constant for passers-by heading along Greaves Avenue in Great Kills for the past four or five decades.

On the south-western side of the road, between the intersections with Greaves Lane and Katan Avenue, there is a sequence of six homes that bear a striking resemblance to one another.

Aside from some siding and landscaping alterations that have been made over time, the half-dozen structures are all still cookie-cutter versions of one another.

They each sit on near-identical plots of land - approximately 55-foot by 90-foot parcels - with a one-car driveway on the left side of the entranceway.

All six feature a short, winding walkway to the front door, as well as a big bay window on the first floor and a pair of peaked attic windows jutting out of the roofs.

It's almost as if they were "built in a factory and dropped there," according to one resident.

Yet, while many areas across the Island have maintained a unifying style of home exteriors because of condominium or development by-laws, these six Greaves Avenue houses are an exception.

According to records from the city's Department of Buildings, the homes received certificates of occupancy in 1958.

(Additional public records indicate that construction on all six may not have finished until the mid-1960s, however.)

After that, they were simply sold off to private owners.

The independent ownership could have opened the door for major modifications to at least one of the buildings.

But somehow, over the past the 50-or-so years, no developer has tried to purchase the plots to build a larger structure or multiple dwellings.

In fact, not even a single homeowner - and many have come and gone over time, according to public records - has constructed an extension on one of the buildings.

"You know, I pass by here all the time and I have to say, it's kind of nice," said longtime Great Kills resident George Troiano, a retiree walking to the nearby Pathmark to pick up some groceries. "They actually look nice together."

Troiano, however, was fast to say that he isn't a fan of strict conformity in general.

"All over this Island you see all these houses go up and look exactly the same and it's kind of crazy," he said. "They pack in houses and make sure that the people who live there keep the same colored shingles on their roofs. I mean, how crazy is that?"

However, the Greaves Avenue sextet features ample room between buildings, and while the original exterior designs have remained, there are plenty of variations to keep even the staunchest opponent of symmetry at bay.

"They kind of look like they were built in a factory and dropped there," Troiano said. "But whoever lived there after that found a way to make it feel like home. I like that. It feels like the suburbs, but not over the top."